Changing my Perspectives to Do What I Love - BIG Shift in my Healing Journey

This is the third part in my short series, examining a celebrity's life, and taking principles from their life to improve my own life. This is also the last of this series.

The third aspect of Dick Van Dyke's life that I found worth replicating was two sides of one coin: Not harboring negative feelings, and inviting love into your life. In this way, you only invest your time into projects, hobbies, activities, and ways of living, that make you happy.

And it's going to take me a minute to explain this one, because, as I'm sure you've noticed from my blogposts:

I like so many things.

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Let me start by telling a story about a girl and her cabbage.

In 2008, Katie Stagliano was 9 years old and in a South Carolina third grade class when she brought home a cabbage seedling from school. She decided to plant it, and cared for it diligently.

Now, I know plenty of children who struggle with responsibility, but Katie stayed the course. She was so attentive, she eventually wound up with a 40 pound cabbage!

Now, normally, cabbage grows to an average of 1-3 pounds. I have no idea what the species of this cabbage was, and maybe it was just the fact that she was so diligent in watering it, but 40 pounds?? That is a monster vegetable.

It was too big for her family to eat, so she decided to contact a soup kitchen: the soup kitchen gladly accepted the cabbage, and so Katie with her family, delivered that 40 pound vegetable to the kitchen.

Later that week, Katie went back to the soup kitchen to help serve her crop to the hungry; She was able to witness her cabbage feed 275 people.

Most people, after seeing this amazing work, might go home, feeling good about what they did, and moving on with their lives - Not Katie.

She decided to create Katie's Krops, an organization that encourages kids to grow vegetables anywhere, with whatever resources, in order to donate crops to soup kitchens.

She is currently in her 20s, and this organization has grown from just Katie, to include her entire community, and kids across several states. They are all growing thousands of pounds of food across hundreds of gardens (with two gardens in Africa!). The organization's primary goal is to teach children gardening and culinary skills, no matter their age, skill level, or access to resources. Their secondary goals are to open gardens across all 50 states, and to take their non-profit organization to an international scale.

All so the hungry can be fed.

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Why am I telling this story?

Because I admire Katie for finding a purpose, so early in life, when there can be so many things pulling a child's attention. She not only found a cause she loved - she has stuck with it, never shifting focus.

If you want to donate to her cause, and have the means to do so, please feel free to give to her cause; you can find her website here: https://katieskrops.com/

Her cause is a worthy one to donate to.

I tell this story, because as for myself, I've never had an experience like this before.

There is no ONE thing that grips my focus or attention, enough for me to consistently carry it with me through life.

I love too many things:

I love art, I love crafting, I love Pokémon (as you saw last post), I love animals, I love playing make-believe, I love writing, I love music, I love to sing (even if I don't have a developed skill in it) I love to dance, I love to perform, I love to fight, I love to host, I love to socialize -

I could go on and on!

But at the very root of all that I love, are two very opposing mindsets that I am having trouble reconciling - I fear this indecision will always paralyze me from finding some one thing that lights my soul on fire. But I don't know if I will be able to move forward with both of them.

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Here's my dilemma:

I love whimsy: I was the toddler/child that would go near the stage where live music was being performed, and dance like no one was watching. My sister and I would wind through woods and swim in our backyard pond when we were children - I would pretend I was on an important, yet life-threatening trek when I played outside in 4 feet of snow. I would get lost in my own thoughts regularly: I watched movies and read books, and then imagined how their realities would play out in the real world. When I lived in England, I shivered at the thought of faeries in the woods, and I could SWEAR I felt magic coming from castle ruins.

I played with toy animals and Barbies until I was 12 - the only reason I stopped, was because we moved to the UK from the American West Coast, and couldn't take them with us.

If I had experienced a healthy childhood, I suppose I wouldn't have the dilemma I have; I suppose that I would have grown up feeling somewhat secure in my whimsy, and would have just moved on with my life.

But I didn't grow up in a healthy childhood.

My childhood filled me with a lot of feelings: I felt unimportant. I felt forgotten. I felt powerless. I felt afraid. I felt stupid. I felt helpless. And I felt like there was no escape from any of that.

I did what I could to overcome these sad emotions; the most 'helpful' thing I did, was to become the most capable, intelligent, driven, guarded human being I could be.

Because people don't take advantage of strong people. They take advantage of weak people.

And I definitely didn't like the feeling of being weak.

So I became intelligent. And I became a Leader. And I pushed whimsy away while doing this.

I remember very strongly in Preschool, that I did not like playing with other kids for the sole reason that "other kids play wrong". I loved whimsy, but I felt my whimsy had strong parameters. I was confident with what whimsy felt like, looked like, and existed as, and any kid that worked outside those sturdy boxes were an affront to MY imagination. And anyone who disrespected my fantasy was not worth playing with. I was only 4 with this strangely complex way of thinking.

Maybe this was a direct result of not feeling in control at home - maybe this developed separately from that. I have no idea.

Still, as a result of my upbringing, I pushed away whimsy, in favor of cultivating my desire for control. I felt like if I had control (of my thoughts, and my actions), then I would be the power I so desperately wanted in my life. I learned social rules, public rules, and even created rules for myself; I felt protected from chaos as a result. And from that protection, I experienced a sense of pride as a result.

The pinnacle of strength for myself was when I worked as an Animal Control Officer in my local area: Wearing the uniform felt very powerful for myself. Driving my truck in my area would cause other drivers on the road to slow down if they were speeding. Many offenses that crossed my desk resulted in one time offenses, because I used my educational background to give solid advice to animal owners on how best to keep and care for their animals. Those people I had to give citations to, truly deserved them - all but one (but that's a story for another time, if I ever tell that story).

I truly felt good being in a position of authority and justice, especially when I felt I exhibited true fairness in decisions not easily made.

I went to a friend's wedding while I was on the clock. I saw that many other friends had also attended. None of these friends had ever seen me in uniform until that day. I felt respected, I felt powerful - and I loved that for myself.

This is the root of doing things I love: Control vs Whimsy.

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I stepped away from my Animal Control career for a few reasons - but as I look back, that job was not fostering healing for me. Having stepped away, I have made great strides in healing. And as I've been healing from my childhood trauma, away from that job that I loved, I have been dipping my toes into whimsy once again.

A couple years ago, I realized I loved working on hair, so I did a hairstyle that made me feel special: two top buns, with flower clips. They weren't even neatly contained, I purposefully made the top buns messy.

I felt so pretty, and fanciful; I smiled all day as I wore that hairstyle.

And then my husband and I went to dinner.

I was still feeling pretty jovial about my hair-do, so I imagine I was acting somewhat "juvenile" - the waiter took my husband's order, and then turned to me and said "And for you, sweetie?"

Now, I don't live in the South, and this was a male waiter, so normally, I don't get greeted in such a casual way. I was not expecting this interaction.

It's been a couple years since that happened, but I remember freezing at that - I hated being called a pet nickname, because it felt like I was being dismissed at face value.

I felt the balloon of my happiness pop right then and there as I thought about it: I decided he would not have addressed me that way if I was not wearing that hairstyle. I took out my hair while we were waiting for food, and I haven't worn that hairstyle since.

As the years have passed since that incident, I thought my issue with denying myself whimsy was that I was too prideful. And maybe that's partially still true - but the real reason I struggle to embrace my whimsy again, is because I have learned to love control.

Whimsy is flippant and unending - Control is linear with clear parameters.

Whimsy promotes unexpected and uncontrolled reactions from others - Control limits how people react to me, into more predictable and favorable (to me) outcomes.

And my most desirable outcome is to not be laughed at, or belittled.

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So, knowing this, I thought I had a clear decision to make: Either embrace Control, or embrace Whimsy. I couldn't do both.

But neither option felt complete - each option felt like strings were attached:

As I embrace my control, I have to reject and hate whimsy.

To embrace my whimsy, I have to let go of control and embrace chaos.

It also didn't help that part of my trauma involves giving up, or silencing part of my identity for peace.

So for a long time, I felt stuck- because surely only one side of me was the "right" answer...

Right?

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It turns out, it's not as black and white as that.

As I was writing the first draft of the above paragraph, my Grandmother's recent letter popped into my mind.

My Grandmother has been writing me letters over the last year: little tidbits of life advice from her perspective. 2025 was a turbulent year for me, where I have felt lost and broken. Her letters helped me feel seen, and instilled hope that darkness would not last forever; as a result, I am very grateful she wrote these letters to me.

She's been writing these letters, focusing on a specific word (or grouping of words), starting with words that begin with A, all the way down to letters that end in Z. And I just finished reading the "Z" letter yesterday.

Her word for "Z" was "Zebra".

I love animals, so a few words were animal related - and it's amazing the timing of this letter, coinciding with the pondering I have done these last couple of days:

This is what I got from her letter: Zebras are black and white, but life is not so linear. There are many greys and colors in between the black and white stripes of life. No one way or ideology is right, and no one way or ideology is wrong, but blending pieces of life together will bring the best results for my life. So do the work needed to find what aspects work for you, regardless of what anyone else thinks or says.

And today, as I've been writing just now, I think I know how to blend whimsy and control!

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*** To be very transparent, I was planning to finish this post talking about how I had to give up one or the other ideologies I was talking about - I was fully prepared to do that.

And yet, all I needed was a perspective shift!

To begin talking about what I mean, I want to talk about one area of my life that is a balance of whimsy and control: Heavy Fighting.

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Now is a great time to talk about my blog site tag: Song of the Stallion.

I don't know how many other girls grew up with the Song of the Lioness Quartet, but that's my inspiration for this blog tag. Let me explain:

Tamora Pierce is a young adult fantasy novelist that wrote the Song of the Lioness series: It centers around a teenage girl, who disguises herself as a boy, in order to become a Knight for her kingdom (set in a magic medieval fantasy, who would even question this?), which does not allow women to become Knights. She goes through all the trials of a teenage girl, all while pretending to be a boy, but eventually, she becomes a Knight. And as a result, the Kingdom finds out that she's a woman - the first woman Knight ever. She still graduates her training as a Knight though; soon after graduating page/squire school, she goes on to carve out her own destiny as a Knight, ultimately saving her kingdom in its darkest hour.

As a preteen, I loved these books - I always thought it would be hard, but rewarding work to show everyone that even a woman was capable of great things. But I had real fears and self-doubt, so I didn't think being a warrior was something attainable for myself.

I had decided that I could only utilize this idea to protect myself, through fostering control of my intellect and leadership skills to make me feel powerful.

But now, after years of not reading the series, I look at these books as an opportunity to merge Whimsy and Control together.

It's going to take discipline and control to condition my body, and don armor to hit people without being a danger on the field. Yet this activity is set in fantasy: I'm not training for a life-or-death certainty, I'm doing this for fun, and partially, to fulfill a whimsical aspiration I've had of being a lady fighter.

See the brilliance yet?

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If you don't, just know that I am seeing my life differently now.

I've had a pivotal perspective shift happen, and it's not leaving me: I finished writing the first draft of this paper around 3 pm this afternoon, left to take a shower and do some physical self-care, and then watched a couple shows on YouTube before coming back to finish this post. I did these things with much more focus, clarity, and peace, than I have in a VERY long time.

And several hours later, I still feel excited by my prospects that I can keep control, and foster my love of whimsy, at essentially the same time!

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Yesterday, before writing this blogpost, I saw a video that seemed promising in it's pledge to show viewers how to create lasting change for the new year - the premise was that you should organize your life goals for change like you are writing a fantasy novel.

I really enjoyed the principles shared there, and I think I will take my time exploring that way to change later - It might become a new blogpost later, we'll see. But I hope you all see that I'm not looking to make sporadic change all at once. The goal is sustainable change over a lengthy period of time. I'm in no hurry to rush into a hastily made plan for myself, and give up in a few days because I'm not making immediate (and unrealistic) change in a short amount of time!

I'm in it for the long-haul, baby. And so I am taking a few small principles from that video I saw, so that I can establish a habit that will lead to bigger changes later.

Here's my plan moving forward for balancing my love of control with my love of whimsy:

1) Look over all the activities I love/need to do, and designate them as "Control" focused and "Whimsy" focused - if an activity has elements of both, designate them as "Blended".

2) Schedule time during my day to balance "Control" activities with "Whimsy" activities, and sprinkle "Blended" activities sparingly during a week - I am hoping by starting this way, I can show my mind that I am not sacrificing one way of thinking in favor of the other. I can truly dip into both in one day if I choose.

3) Include times to rest and time to journal my thoughts/results - I find that my change works best when I am actively engaging my thoughts and hands (through physically writing) periodically. And rest is still very important, because I do not want overwhelm myself: I need rests from All-or-Nothing thinking, and allow down time from constant application of a new principle.

4) If I struggle to be whimsical, I have a specific folder on my computer full of meme reminders that whimsy is good for me - I do not see them regularly, so their impact is still very effective.

5) If I struggle to feel in control, I have a specific folder on my computer full of meme reminders that letting go of control is natural and healthy - I also don't see these regularly, potency is key here.

6) Re-read the Song of the Lioness Quartet (My sister gave me the box set this Christmas, and I am so grateful she gifted me this series, thanks sister! 💝) - this is to remind myself that control and whimsey can be blended/balanced.

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In my own way, I am doing what Dick Van Dyke has advised the general public: let go of hate, and embrace things you love. I am letting go of my frustration and resentment of healing pains, and I am letting go of All-or-Nothing viewpoints that are detrimental to my health. Instead, I am reframing my obstacles, and embracing core ideas from my upbringing, in a healthy, balanced, and blended manner.

A few blogposts back, I talked about "cringe" and how I felt unable to allow myself to be cringe.

By reframing "cringe" into "whimsy", I feel like cringe is a stepping stone to allowing myself to feel the power of whimsy in my life.

It turns out, I don't need to pick one viewpoint, or even find one thing to focus on for my entire life; I can keep doing all the things I love by understanding their context:

I'm reading princess-themed books I find at the Thrift store, written for children. This is Whimsy.

I'm creating art of my Pathfinder character, whom I have embedded with personal themes. This is Whimsy.

I'm part of an Improv group where I get to spontaneously create with friends. I have previously viewed this as Control, but it's actually Whimsy again.

I'm wearing a curated collection of clothes from the Thrift store perfect for any occasion - shoes have been hardest to find, but I've recently found some killer kicks I adjusted for my personal style. And I LOVE them! - this is Control, with a peppering of Whimsy.

I'm scheduling time to finish SCA projects, including the Hairstyling piece I've been working on - this is also Control, with a splash of Whimsy.

I'm writing and memorizing Bardic pieces, hoping to perform live soon. I view this as Control.

I bought myself a Pokéball Belt I saw at the Thrift store, so I can securely attach my Pokéwalker to me when I work out. Whimsy.

Working out itself: Control.

Understanding the context is helping me mentally organize - I can fully feel "myself" by highlighting which tasks are under which category, and balancing them out.

With this realization, I'm gearing up to take control of my mind and body by allowing space for whimsy.

And I'm ready to show myself that I can be happy doing ALL THE THINGS!!! 😁😁😁

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All of this recent self-examination started when I realized a celebrity had just turned 100 years old. I wasn't examining his life to ensure I would live to 100 years old myself - far from it. I wanted what he has: passion, love, and freedom to do as I please. I would not have experienced this pivotal moment of change for myself if it wasn't for Dick.

Thank you so much Dick Van Dyke - without your life as an example, I would not have taken the time to sit down and truly examine where I am at right now in my life's journey. May you continue to prosper as you have, and when death does eventually catch up to you, may it be the sweetest rest one can receive. 💝

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These past few years have been a chaotic period of healing for me: whenever I wanted to be more whimsical, my control senses would constrict and shrink that want away. And whenever I really pushed myself to be "in control", like in a leadership position, I would feel so much shame about leaving my Animal Control job (because if I was SO dead set on being a leader, then why did I leave that job?). I truly felt torn up inside for just trying to figure out who "me" was, and more specifically, which side of "me" I would ultimately end up choosing for the rest of my life.

I'm sincerely grateful I don't have to cast anything aside in the end.

My changes would not have come to me this quickly, if it weren't for so many people who were rooting for me: I am so grateful for my husband, as he has endured all my ups and downs through these past 5+ years of dedicated healing.

I'm so grateful for my friends and chosen family who seem to love me no matter what.

And I am most grateful for my Heavenly Father and my Savior for their love and patience as I work to make myself a better human being. Especially my Savior: his sacrifice through his atonement is what inspires me to continue to overcome my obstacles, big and small.

And thank you so much for reading - without people interested in my journey, I don't think I would have arrived at this new frame of thought as quickly. Your interest in my current affairs is helping me reach new heights.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

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I'm tempted to do reviews of the princess books I read - let me know if you would be interested in this as a relaxed, once-every-other-blogpost series. Seriously, I have been reading some straight-up bangers lately that I would love to share with you 😊

Even if I don't do this, I'll be sure to update you all on my progress of how I am doing with these changes. Again, I'm taking my time, so I don't know when the next blogpost will be.

But I'll see you again soon, promise.

See you at the next post!

XOXOX